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Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

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Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#401

Post by camillomiller »

dimal wrote: post #148

Oh no. It looks like every button and menu is now a translucent layer, so that any noise from the background shows through and muddles the text. This seems like an accessibility nightmare. Translucent layers generally make software unusable for me. In the video, I saw several instances that would be really really bad for me, where I’d be straining to understand the text. Looks really cool and futuristic though. Just…

they will not. Apple has accessibility features for all of the use cases and surely for this as well.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#402

Post by thenaturalist »

ultrarunner wrote: post #310
thenaturalist wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not autistic, but this is just so weird. Why would you design readability and visibility to depend on chaotic, highly varied and probably sometimes bad underlying backgrounds? I fail to see any systematic approach/ consistent design language at play here. Let's hope this does not survive for long.

I’ve noticed a recurring theme on iOS where interactions intended for an app get trapped by the OS (especially multi-window interactions on iPad). The OS is less and less a foundation to support what you actually want, and more the product itself. If the actual content of the phones matters less than the fact that iOS itself is “the latest” then this makes perfect sense and is in line with the general momentum over t…

Fully agree with your sentiment, and it was kinda sad to see the demo going there.

"And this is how easy I can replace this custom component with a new glass component...".

The whole thing is just wild.

There was plenty of UX enhancements which looked solid, but just for them to be paired with a design choice of N=1 elements is... well let's see if it pays off I guess?

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#403

Post by cosmic_cheese »

slt2021 wrote: post #282
austinl wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also likely a performance nightmare. Funny that they mention that "new hardware has enabled us to..." which means that this will perform poorly on old devices. At a previous company, we were forbidden from using translucency (with a few exceptions) because of the performance cost of blending. There are debugging tools we'd use fairly often to confirm that all layers were opaque.

these performance hungry "improvements" are forcefully introduced to legitimately slow down older devices and force the device refresh across the user base. I have been using 8 year old iPhone just fine, but features like these over time will make the experience slower and slower and slower, until I am forced to refresh my iphone

I think probably a much bigger problem is app bloat. Devs are usually using very recent if not brand new top end devices to test and develop against which naturally makes several types of performance degradation invisible to them (“works on my machine”). Users on old and/or low end devices on the other hand feel all of those degradations.

If we want to take increasing device lifetimes seriously we need to normalize testing and development against slow/old models. Even if such testing is automated, it’d do wonders for keeping bloat at bay.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#404

Post by WhyNotHugo »

rollcat wrote: post #255
dimal wrote: post #148

Oh no. It looks like every button and menu is now a translucent layer, so that any noise from the background shows through and muddles the text. This seems like an accessibility nightmare. Translucent layers generally make software unusable for me. In the video, I saw several instances that would be really really bad for me, where I’d be straining to understand the text. Looks really cool and futuristic though. Just…

macOS (I'm still on Sonoma tho): System Settings -> Accessibility -> Display -> Reduce Transparency. (I also recommend Reduce Motion, but YMMV - some animations are really helpful.) iOS: Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Reduce Transparency. You're welcome.

You can also disable animations on iOS.

When switching between screens, there’s just a long pause instead of the animation. These pauses drive me crazy, it’s simply not possible to configure the device to be responsive.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#405

Post by withinboredom »

laserbeam wrote: post #293
ksec wrote: post #214

The whole thing is Windows Vista Aero Glass and iOS 7 all over again. Repeating all the SAME mistakes with 3D translucent design. Right now I really want skeuomorphism back. Much like iOS 7 they will have to spend another 2 - 3 years "tweaking" or basically walking back some of these design decisions. I believe the problem is when Tim Cook decided to merge "Design" under one umbrella. So the Design team now takes ove…

It’s not “mistakes”, it’s fashion. The cool thing about fashion is you can never run out of innovation. If something has been out of fashion for 15 years you can bring it back! It makes it seem like everything is forever changing and new. I’ll bet your ass that material design will be all the rave in 10-15 years or so.

material design ... spsh, we call it substence design.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#407

Post by username223 »

yuehhangalt wrote: post #333
surgical_fire wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> , designing interfaces based on "vibes" instead of science or principles or used feedback Well, this is what Apple does, and the reason I hate their devices with a passion. It always was style over substance.

You must be too young to remember because a lot of the early user interface design principles, based on actual research, were pioneered by Bruce Tognazzini and Jef Raskin at Apple. Tog on Interface and Tog on Software Design were THE bibles back in the day and Apple's Human Interface Guidelines showed how a company could and should adopt consistent user experience across all of their products. It honestly saddens me…

> It honestly saddens me how far Apple has fallen.

Same. For just one example, consider how submenus work. You don't notice when they're done right, but when they're done poorly, they will disappear when you try to choose a submenu item, or stick around when you expect them to go away. Getting them right is subtle; Apple got them right, and plenty of web pages still get them wrong.

That's interface design. Flashy translucency effects are something else.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#408

Post by ricardobeat »

dimal wrote: post #148

Oh no. It looks like every button and menu is now a translucent layer, so that any noise from the background shows through and muddles the text. This seems like an accessibility nightmare. Translucent layers generally make software unusable for me. In the video, I saw several instances that would be really really bad for me, where I’d be straining to understand the text. Looks really cool and futuristic though. Just…

There is a 'Reduced transparency' mode which you can enable in system settings. Safe to assume this will still exist in the new OS versions.

This will be a massive improvement in usability over flat design, which made UIs only learnable by trial and error.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#409

Post by stock_toaster »

prashnts wrote: post #361
plainOldText wrote: post #200

This looks horrible to be honest. This new liquid glass will lead to liquid brain, because my brain will be melting trying to process all that visual mess daily. Now of course, I'll have to experience this new design in practice to be sure, but judging from the screenshots it looks really hard on the eyes. Hopefully they'll allow the translucency to be customized. Apple had a good run, I've genuinely enjoyed using th…

Reduce Transparency in Accessibility settings removes the glass effect, but I believe has been updated to be closer to the translucent effects in current iOS.

I find the "reduce motion" toggle to be a more pleasant experience on iOS as well.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#410

Post by hk1337 »

sarreph wrote: post #388

Perhaps contrarian (here anyway) but I think Liquid Glass looks neat, and represents the next evolution of the "backdrop-filter: blur;" effect that we've been seeing on the web a _lot_ as of late... Which, funnily enough also gained adoption in a large part IMO due to Apple's usage of it in macOS for the past few years now. I think the new design approach here is a clever nudge towards "Neo Skeuomorphism". Interface…

I'm skeptical but I will hold judgment until I actually see it. Things can look weird or ugly on video or the first time you've seen it but given some time you can change your mind.
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